CHAPTER VI.

Phrase, the Person of Christ-Means nothing more than simple Name, the Christ-No Analogy between Person of Christ suffering from Pains of Human Nature and Person of ordinary Man suffering from corporeal Pains-Bishop Pearson again considered -Bishop Beveridge considered-Godhead of Christ suffered actually, not merely by construction-If Christ suffered only in Humanity, his Sufferings, taken in reference to his Divine Beatitude were inconceivably small.

THE phrase, the person of Christ, holds a conspicuous place in Christian theology, and is intimately connected with our subject. The union of his two natures constitutes what is termed the person of Christ; and it is supposed by our opponents that, from the suffering of either of his united natures, his person would be said to suffer. Hence it is argued that the scriptural declarations affirming that Christ suffered, in general and unrestricted terms, had abundant aliment in the suffering of his manhood alone. This is the citadel, claiming impregnable strength, in which the advocates of the prevalent theory have intrenched themselves; it requires, therefore, to be accurately examined.

It is believed that the phrase, the person of Christ, is found but once in the translation of the

New Testament, 2 Corinthians, ii., 10. The verse in the translation reads thus: "To whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also; for if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ." The best commentators think that this passage is incorrectly translated, and that the original Greek words rendered "in the person of Christ" should have been rendered "in the name and by the authority of Christ." So thought Macknight, and other commentators agree with him.

But it would be useless to pursue the inquiry whether the phrase, the person of Christ, is of divine or human origin. Whatever its origin may be, the phrase has no greater amplitude of meaning than the simple scriptural name, the Christ. The name expresses the union of the divine and human natures; the phrase expresses nothing more. Christ and the person of Christ are synonymous. Should theology seek to clothe the phrase with a wider meaning than belongs to the simple name, the extension must be wrought out by the artificial process of human reasoning. On such extension no true theory of Christian faith can repose. None can object to the use of the phrase as a convenient synonyme for the name of Christ; we may ourselves use it for that purpose in these sheets; beyond that its use is not

sanctioned by scriptural authority. The name itself imports the union of the Godhead and the manhood; the phrase can legitimately import nothing more.

It has been urged, that as the union of his two natures forms the person of Christ, in the same way as the union of the soul and body of an ordinary man forms the person of that man, so the numerous passages of scripture declarative of Christ's sufferings are all satisfied by his having suffered in his humanity, in the same manner as an ordinary person is said to suffer, though his pains are corporeal. It is not within our province to complain of the comparison between the person of Christ, composed of his two natures, and the person of an ordinary man, composed of his body and soul, when used for purposes of general illustration; but when applied to Christ's expiatory agonies, and urged to satisfy, by the suffering of his mere manhood, the oft-repeated declarations of scripture, averring his sufferings in terms which, according to their natural and plain import, would make them pervade every recess of his united being, nothing can be more fallacious and misleading than this very comparison.

The person of an ordinary man is said to suffer from corporeal pains, because corporeal pains af

fect his whole united being. If any one doubts whether an ailment of the body communicates itself to the mind, let the skeptic attempt some intellectual effort with a raging toothache, or with a limb writhing under the agonies of the gout. So, mental suffering, when intense or protracted, affects the body. The disease of a broken heart, though it may find no place on the bills of mortality, has, nevertheless, many victims.

But if there was no sympathetic link between the human soul and her humble sister; if she stood impregnable in her impassibility; if she was cased in armour of proof less penetrable than the fabled armour of the Grecian hero; if she felt the ailments of her encircling flesh no more than the body feels the rents of the garments which it wears, then, indeed, the local pains of the outer man could not be ranked under the denomination of the suffering of his person. The chief element of his person is the immortal, priceless spirit within.

Should that continue to bask in the sunshine of bliss, untouched by the local ailments of his mere body, those ailments would be classed under some more limited and humble appellation than that of the suffering of his person. A part of a person is not the person. This position is based on the elemental principle that a part is not the whole. The foot is not the person, though

forming one of its integral parts. Any ailment of the foot, unless it generally affected the person, could not be denominated the suffering of the person.

If we are at liberty to suppose that, by the laws of his united being, the agonies of Christ's human nature pervaded and affected his divine essence also, then, and then only, would any similitude exist between the person of Christ suffering from his human anguish, and the person of an ordinary man suffering from corporeal pain. But the very corner-stone of the prevalent theory rests on the supposition that the anguish of Christ's human nature did not affect the divine; that while the man Christ Jesus was writhing under agonies unparalleled in the annals of profane or sacred story, the God Christ Jesus was untouched by pain; that his beatitude was as perfect at Gethsemane, and on the cross, as it had been when, in his presence, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy," to celebrate the birth of the new world which he had just brought into being. Job, xxxviii., 7.

If the Godhead of Christ, cased in everlasting. impassibility, participated not in the agonies of his manhood, then the supposed analogy between the person of an ordinary man suffering from his